


naps at inopportune times

by CalicoCats



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound, Mother 3
Genre: Gen, lucas centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 13:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19199575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalicoCats/pseuds/CalicoCats
Summary: Between the destruction and rebirth of a world, Lucas dreams.





	naps at inopportune times

The final needle pulled, there was nothing but the crust of the earth keeping the dark dragon at bay. As the cavern around them crumbled like a stale, slightly unclean and not very tasty cookie, a distraught teenager checked the pulse of a young boy in a knit yellow and red striped sweater. Feeling a pulse and the psi surrounding him isn’t enough to get the teen to entirely relax (the world was ending, after all) but it’s a relief nonetheless.

 

Her companions struggle to stay standing amid the tremors and the cracks in the already fractured ground, and she telepathically relays them the news, uncertain that her voice will carry against the sound of calamity. 

 

With all the grief they’d faced that day, Kumatora couldn’t blame Lucas for needing to rest. 

 

-

 

Lucas awakened on a stack of hay for the second time in a year, except this time boney is nowhere in sight. The sky is a soft shade of blue with scoops of clouds moving at a snails pace, and surrounding him were sunflowers as far as he can see, dispersed in places by various structures. He won’t get anywhere lazing around and getting hay in his hair, so Lucas slid down the side of the hay stack, only to find that the hay stack was on top of the cart the item guy pulled around, the item guy himself standing next to it. 

 

“Oh, Lucas! How’d you end up here?” the item guy asked as he leaned against his cart. Lucas wanted to answer, but he found that he wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here. 

 

The item guy probably meant it as a rhetorical question anyway, because he went on with what he was saying anyway. “You guys did great! I’m glad I could’ve helped you at all, in the end,” he said, “i know you probably don’t need my help anymore, but tell me if you want to switch out any items.” Lucas nodded, although he had decided he wanted to figure out just where he was first. 

 

He almost didn’t notice how the sunflower petals turned a mint green, but that wasn’t his highest priority at the moment. 

 

-

 

The sunflowers were... strange. As he walked through them to get a look at the other structures he found that they turned away from the sun to stare at him instead, as if he was made of concentrated sunshine. There wasn’t too much time to dwell on it, because Lucas was now standing in front of... what looked to be a room of Osohe castle torn out from Osohe castle.

 

He knocked on the wall next to where the door would be, just to be polite, and a ghost appeared out of thin air. Or maybe it was just waiting there, invisible, to scare the next poor soul who knocked. Lucas couldn’t be sure.

 

It wordlessly handed him a rotten eclair, and moved out of the doorway to show him inside. The main attraction seemed to be the piano in the farthest left corner, with a few chairs strewn around it and a table on the opposite wall holding up more eclairs and a bowl filled with a drink that was either finely aged or expired. A couple of odd wall staples held onto the peeling wall paper. The ghost sat (?) on one of the chairs, and Lucas had the feeling he was supposed to play the piano. He placed the rotten eclair with the rest of them, and sat down at the piano. 

 

It was times like this he wished he took Kumatora on her offer to teach him to play piano, but he’d had much more to worry about at the time. The sheet music was credited the Mr. Passion, although the name of the piece itself was smudged out. 

 

Lucas pressed down a few keys. He had decided to improvise and create his own piece of music. It wasn’t a good piece of music per say, but it served its point, and when he looked back at the sheet music it had changed to an untitled piece credited to himself, with notes he guessed matched the ones he’d played. He placed it with the rest of the items. 

 

The ghost was clapping. In fact, multiple ghosts were clapping, and Lucas guessed that the other seats must have been filled by now. He turned to see his audience and to thank the ghost that invited him in, to see that they’d all disappeared. Typical ghost fare.

 

-

 

Now outside, Lucas stared at the dark blue sky, muddled with the colors of a recent sunset. The sunflowers’ petals were now a bright purple. Maybe they mimicked the change in sky color? 

 

This time the sunflowers seemed to spring awake as he passed them, then fall asleep once he was a distance away. The empty sky left him to think of things to fill it with, and he it ended with him almost tripping over what seemed like a mound of dirt. Looking down, though, Lucas discovered it was a discarded clayman, rooted in place by the soil and sunflowers growing atop it.

 

A flyer for a DCMC concert was partially trapped under its arm, though the date only said today. When was today? The date escaped him. The petals turned a darker shade of purple.

 

Whether or not the flyer was recent, it appeared the DCMC was actually playing today. Their music faintly played in the distance. Leaving the clayman behind, Lucas followed the sound and ended up standing in front of a jukebox among the flowers. Despite its run down appearance, it worked as if it was brand new. 

 

Lucas listened to it run through various songs, some he recognized, some that sounded entirely unfamiliar. When he thought to pay attention to the sunflowers again, they’d gone and turned a light pink, and the sky was beginning to lighten up to what it’d been before.

 

-

 

The sunflowers were endless. Lucas wasn’t in a rush, but he felt like he was forgetting something.

 

The movie theater was open. The woman at the counter looked out of place. Her uniform reminded Lucas of the night after he worked his first, and only, part time job. Lucas didn’t bother looking at what items they sold, and she didn’t bother asking him what movie he was here to see. Only one movie played, after all.

 

Barring Lucas, there was only one person in the theater. He sat at the front, and almost looked entirely unfamiliar except that his outfit matched the one if the boy onscreen, down to the badge on his shirt and the red and blue cap. Lucas felt bad for him, because he remembered that merchandise being expensive, so to be conned into buying a full set... 

 

Somehow, it felt like the outfit fit him though, more than just in being the right size. If Lucas didn’t know any better he’d think that the kid was the boy on screen. 

 

“There’s a free seat next to me,” the boy said cheerfully enough, and Lucas ignored for a second that there were free seats everywhere. After Lucas sat down, the boy introduced himself. The boy was visiting from out of town. He knew a lot more about the movie than he should’ve from just rewatching, but he made for good company. 

 

“You know, I’ve been somewhere like here before a while ago,” The boy said once the movie was finished and the credits played,“You must’ve been through a lot to get here, I’d thought it could only have been done once.”

 

“Oh! Before I forget,” the boy fumbled with the pin on his shirt once he freed it handed it to Lucas, “I think you lost this?” 

 

Lucas went to get his own badge to show that he’d had it with him. He didn’t, and wasn’t sure he’d want to ask this near stranger where he’d found it. Pinned back onto his shirt, Lucas once again acquired the Franklin Badge. 

 

While searching through his stuff, Lucas had found something he thought the boy might’ve liked, and that Lucas had been holding onto far too long. He gave the boy the Friend’s Yo-yo. 

 

The boy went wide eyed at this, and whispered something about how he’d been looking for ages for it. He thanked Lucas, for the yo-yo and for keeping him company. After even the credits were over Lucas went to leave, and the boy shouted “see you later, Lucas!” after him. Wouldn’t have been odd, except Lucas wasn’t sure he’d said his name in that conversation, and when he turned the boy was gone, not unlike the ghosts had disappeared.

 

With all Lucas had seen psychic powers do, Lucas supposed weirder things could happen.

 

-

 

Looking at the hole in the movie theaters speaker, Lucas saw a mystery metal monkey, somehow taking a nap. It was a good experience 

 

-

 

The sunflowers and the sky had gone back to the color they’d been at the very beginning, with the sunflowers just as intent to follow Lucas with their gaze. It was more than a little unnerving.

 

He’d lost sight of the theater, but he had experience with walking in long fields of sunflowers, and it generally worked to walk in one direction long enough to find something. 

 

Although it seemed like the end of the buildings, Lucas came across a few of the citizens of Tazmily: Lighter, Fuel, Abbot, Abbey, Caroline, Thomas, and others he doesn’t know by name. 

 

Thomas congratulated him on his progress, Abbot and Abbey said he’d grown so much since they last saw him, Caroline gave him a small bag of cookies, Lighter and Fuel were rooting for him, and the rest offered other pieces of encouragement. 

 

The sunflower petals flip between various colors after each person speaks, each more outlandish than the last.

 

It was odd, how they supported him when they’d regarded him as more of a nuisance for the last three years. 

 

Lucas didn’t miss the broken happy boxes littering the ground that became more frequent as he walked onwards. 

 

-

 

Although the sunflowers had mostly remained consistent, patches of them had been burnt out but what Lucas would guess were lightning strikes, or a large scale fire.

 

At the end of his trek, Lucas stood in front of his house. Unlike the other structures, it remained undistorted. The sheep greet him from their pen, and with the sight of his home Lucas realized just how tired he was. Just how tired he is.

 

But after his time traveling, after thick and thin with Boney, Kumatora, and Duster, it no longer felt like his home. More of a distant memory.

 

As he talked to the sheep, the flower petals turned grey.

 

Lucas walked inside anyway, despite his better judgement. If he didn’t know any better he’d say he hadn’t been there in years, but he couldn’t have began traveling more than a year ago. 

 

Although Lucas’ bed is already made, Claus’ covers are still messy, like he’d left in a hurry. Lucas can’t bring himself to sleep here. 

 

A look in the mirror showed that Lucas was in his pajamas. Which wasn’t right, because he would’ve noticed during his time in the sunflowers, but he’s not too sure of that at this point. His reflection looked off kilter, and he had moved closer to the mirror to see why that was.

 

He fell into the mirror after the realization that his reflection had red hair, not blonde.

 

-

 

Many, many stories down Lucas stood and brushed the dust off himself. The cave he’s found himself in is regrettably familiar. Even with his memory being fuzzy, the anticipation of what may lie ahead had Lucas filled to the brim with dread.

 

Pajamas are really not the right clothes for this.

 

Like the sunflowers, the energy of the cave seems centered on him. The shocks of electricity move towards him as he walked on the purple tinted rock. There are no enemies this far down, just like how the enemies above were either nonexistent or benign. It almost made the walk worse.

 

At the end there was a pedestal carved out from the rock, holding the fragile hummingbird egg that holds a towns worth of memories and an unmeasurable amount of forgotten history. 

 

On impulse Lucas gave it a tap, and the egg released a bright, blinding light.

 

Any of the fogginess surrounding Lucas’ memories dispersed, like morning fog disappeared once the sun rose. 

 

With it began the dissolving of the land Lucas’ consciousness had created.

 

Before it vanished for good, someone stood at Lucas’ side. Someone impossible to not recognize.

 

He ruffled Lucas’ hair. Remarked how Lucas was taller than him now. Suggested that when this was over that they should cook omelets. The way mom used to.

 

Lucas felt like he could cry.

 

He hugged Claus as tight as he could before Magicant was erased.

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking what if m3 had a magicant and then I wrote this based mostly on chapter 6. this was written w/out a plan so it probably doesn’t make a bunch of sense and that’s alright.


End file.
